5 Guys
by Shiggity Shwa
Summary: Five quick oneshots about the men in Vala's life.
1. The Thoroughbred

_A/N: This is a very short fic with each chapter being approximately 1000 words. Originally the intention was to have Vala learn something in each chapter, but that faltered out about halfway through. I'm also currently working on two fics similar to this one (and Two Birds still so don't worry)._

 **Disclaimer: I own nothing**

5 Guys

Chapter 1

The Thoroughbred 

A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you. ~ Elbert Hubbard

1.

It's an odd game really, one that she doesn't quite understand. Always notices it in the corner of his office, the board set up and all those lovely little figurines that each have their own purpose. To be honest, she thought that it was just a collection of knickknacks that he was proud to display. Thought about stealing one early on, the material looked to be a beautiful crystal but when she tried to verify this through Daniel, he answered it was a translucent plastic or glass.

"Ms. Mal Doran." The General stands when she enters the room and she knows this is a contradictory action because she's seen Samantha and Mitchell vacate their chairs in honor of him. She often forgets his rank and what it means to everyone else, though it means nothing to her. He is a just a man, a nice man whom she enjoys spending time with, but no different to her than any other she's known. "Do you know why I called you in?"

"Yes General, and I would just like to say I wasn't complicit in the act at all. Firstly, Daniel decided to turn on the device that I very clearly warned him was radioactive and—"

"Vala." Raises his hands telling her to slow or halt her story, unsure of which she slows the speed of her words and closes her mouth when this doesn't appease him. "I read both your reports about the lab being slightly radioactive now, I know it was an accident."

"Oh." Pulls her smile wide and nods at his words, hoping to escape reprimanding, or reprimanding that she can't grin or nod her way out of, or her greatest fear of being reprimanded with a pay cut. She likes her money, likes buying little bobbles for her hair and silk robes to wear around the confines of her room. "Then why am I here?" her tone turns cavalier, so she quickly spits out, "Sir."

He grins softly and strolls to the corner of the room where that board sits, the little figures all dustless and proper. "You've been with SG-1 for a while now."

"A year or so?" Questions with a squeak of her voice because she doesn't know the actual date. His expression widens into one of shock and through squinting she adds, "two years? Three—It's not my fault no one actually throws parties for these things and I keep saying we need more parties around here."

"Come take a seat." Drags a chair away from the table and gestures for her to sit in it. She's always taken back by Tau'ri men and their manners, a welcome change from some of the holes in the galaxy she's ended up in, a welcome change from the men on her home world and their rather handsy nature.

Hesitantly sits in the chair and flashes a very awkward, _very_ anxious side smile at him. "What are we doing?"

"I'm going to teach you how to play chess."

"The board and figures game?"

He takes the seat across from her and she wonders if this is because Carolyn recently transferred out. Knows they were having frequent disagreements about her dating a member of SG-15 that he didn't approve of. Tau'ri fathers are so beautifully unique, caring for their children well into adulthood and expecting nothing but love back. Nothing but love. "General, while I'm honored you'd take time out of your busy schedule to teach me chest—"

"Chess."

"—yes, of course—I know that you have to be quite intelligent to play and I don't think I'm completely qualified. Daniel said—"

"Sounds to me like Dr. Jackson didn't want to spend the time teaching you." Holds up the tiniest of the pieces, it has a rounded top and looks like gear shift in Cameron's jeep. "This is a pawn."

"I was a pawn to many a plan in my days as a free agent." Touches the similar piece on her side and finds it weightier in her hand that she would've thought.

"It can move one or two spaces."

"I often had to think one or two spaces ahead of my enemies." Plucks the only figurine that appeals to her, moulded or carved to look like a horse, beautiful creatures she saw running around the farm when she went to Kansas. When she pet it, the sound of appreciation it made, a sort of snort, warmed her. "What does this one do?"

He seems pleased she's taking an interest and pulls his own horse from the ranks. "This is a knight, it can only move in an L pattern."

"An L?"

"Yes like this." Demonstrates the movement several times clacking the horse over the black tiles until he's sure she understands.

She slides the horse forward in a straight line, clomping it over white and black squares alike. "So, I cannot move the thoroughbred this way?"

"No, but a rook does that."

"A rook?" Sighs and squeezes the tiny horse head in her hand until an imprint appears embedded on her skin. "General—Sir—while I really appreciate you taking the time to teach me, I think I need to reiterate what Daniel said—"

He reaches forward, to what she thinks, is remove the horse from her hand and she almost jumps when his warm hand cups hers for a moment. She stares at it and then across the table and she doesn't think she can blink. "Vala, all Team One members plays chess with me," pats her hand in endearment and sets her toppled horse upright. "So, you're going to have to learn sooner or later."


	2. The Warrior

5 Guys

Chapter 2

The Warrior

2.

Usually just before lunch on off mission days Muscles and Cameron like to spar in the workout room, and she likes to watch. Not for obvious reasons, although she does enjoy a friendly competition between two strapping men, but because she learns from observing. Her home world, a backwards planet run by empty-noggined men, wasn't too keen on training females to fight. When she gained her freedom from slavery and went out into the world as a teenager she vowed no one would treat her the way Fierenze and her parents had. Keeping out of trouble while getting into it is difficult, seduction takes care of a lot, but she studied various techniques and weaponry to fight if the time called for it.

"Good afternoon Vala Mal Doran," Teal'c greets as he hangs up a pair of sparring gloves.

"Afternoon Muscles," she grins back, she enjoys the way he says her name, the way they all do. Each addressing her in a different way with a different cadence. Appreciates when they don't bark her name like a certain anthropologist who didn't listen to her when she deciphered the glyphs before he did and is now a bit pissy and a bit radioactive because for once he blew up a room and she didn't.

Teal'c straightens the various weapons against the side wall before picking up a Ma'Tok staff, feeling the weight of it before adjusting his hold. He hikes an eyebrow when he notices her keen eyes. "Do you require my assistance?"

"No—well—it's just—don't you usually spar with Mitchell before lunch?" Rambles out her question afraid he might get the wrong idea with her wandering eyes, because she would get the wrong idea and her eyes do wander.

"Colonel Mitchell's expertise was required elsewhere." Although Muscle's voice is always pretty flat, she can tell he wants an answer to her intrusion.

"Well, I don't know if you've noticed, but I like to sneak in here while you two spar."

"Indeed," even he sounds fed up with her.

"No, no, it's not like that." Although it kind of is now that she mulls on it. "I like to learn from you."

He only lowers his eyelids, and probably his expectations of her.

"No, no, like how to fight."

"You wish to spar?"

"With you?" Shakes her head, braids whipping through the air, "Oh no, you'd annihilate me—"

A single bow forward and from the drop in his voice, she can tell that she's hurt him. "I would never purposefully harm you, Vala Mal Doran."

"And while I appreciate that, it doesn't exactly help me if I have to go hand-to-hand with a man of your—stature."

"Very well." In three short steps he's reattaching the staff to the wall. He clasps those big brisket arms behind his back as he approaches her again with another bow. "Let us spar."

In the same movement he takes a fighting stance and she feels her breakfast crawl up her throat. "Whoa, no, no, this is not what—"

A hand flies out at her and she dodges quickly to the left, her heart shudders a bit and she forgets to breathe.

"Your reflexes are impressive."

Fires another hand near her face and she spins out of the way. Another hand as she twirls out of the spin and slaps it away from impacting her side. He almost smiles, challenged with her fighting style, and his fists keep floating by but never land. They dance around the periphery of the ring, fists and dodging, hands and twirling, and maybe this is what it would be like to attend a high-class ball, swirling about while learning the moves.

That is, until his fist comes right towards her face and she flinches letting out a small shriek. There is no burst of pain and she doesn't understand. Desensitized from the years living with her father and Adria who practiced beatings when she was naughty, and she was hardly ever not naughty, and her mother who sold her off as a child slave when she was twelve. Hit so much her skin shivered into numbness.

She chances opening her eyes, his hand stays straight and unwavering less than an inch from her face, she can almost make out the whorls of his fingerprints. He comes into focus, attached but detached, from his near robotic arm. His face says nothing as it usually does, and his arm is slow in resetting.

"You fight well, Vala Mal Doran."

"Thank you," she huffs, her chest tightens with each breath as her brain talks herself down. The brutal few seconds before pain explodes, the horrid anxiety of waiting to be hit.

"You have had much practice."

"More than you know."

"Indeed."

Does he know? Could he possibly be aware of what had happened to her in the years before her adoption by the SGC. Know what it was like running from stall to stall in a firelit darkness holing up food in a secret sewn in pouch on her mandatory maiden's dress. What it was like to be bought at auction by her first husband, sentenced to death by her second husband, locked in a burning house while pregnant by her third husband, and saved and demeaned and slapped in the face by her fourth.

But his life hasn't been easy, none of their lives have and it's what sticks them together, magnetizes them as a team proficient to be role call one, because their strengths were all garnered under times of duress and their weaknesses are another team member's strength.

"Would you—Would you continue working with me? Teach how to bring down a big teddy bear of a man like you?" Stops him at the door with her words, hopes he can't sense the panic underlying them, the frantic need to be able not only to protect herself, but the team.

Only nods while holding the door open for her. "It would be my pleasure."


	3. The Ex

5 Guys

Chapter 3

The Ex

3.

"Tomin, what are you doing here?" He looks well, he looks way better than her, and she hangs her head a bit when she notices so he can't see her soot smudged face.

"Vala," his voice arises from his smile, and the mirth still makes her glow, warms her on the inside even if it has been a year since she's seen him. He holds a helmet, large and silver with what looks like a vehicle hood ornament adorning the top. His uniform is clean and pressed and even his armor, metallic and hard, is shining clear of any muck. "I am pleased to meet with you again."

The mission did not go very well today, one of those missions where they started planning more than a week in advance only to have one small thing, one small slipup in dialect from their very own archaeologist who has a way with native tongues. They caught Daniel in a mansion closet with the magistrate's daughter and from then on it became a 'get-out-of-there-alive' mission not a 'first contact' mission. To be fair, Daniel did make first contact.

Still dumbfounded, her mouth hangs agape staring at her ex-husband. "I spoke with your General, he gave me permission to speak with you in private."

"Yes, that's all well and good, I just wish you hadn't waited for me in my room." She made her bed this morning, something the rest of the team has drilled into her because apparently, it's all sorts of inappropriate to live on a military base and not make your bed in the morning. She can see faint creases where he sat waiting for her to return.

"Oh, I apologize." Nods, drooping his head to the floor and stepping back to allow her access to her clothing. Everyone has off base homes. Everyone has off base lives. She has to share a washroom, granted the female population in the base is low, and gets a very small prison cell to decorate as her own. "I didn't think it would be inappropriate."

Scoots by him to her closet, where there are various black shirts in various cuts, and two full SG uniforms, plus a few jumpsuits, but in the back corner, that is where the dresses, pants, shirts, the clothes she buys with Sam hide because she never gets to wear them anywhere unless it's on a not date where she loses her memory or to Kansas to be punched in the face by a bounty hunter. "We were married Tomin."

"That is what I would like to talk to you about—" his pacing behind her stops as he rushes close. "You are injured."

"What?" Glances over her shoulder at him and slides away to a small chest of drawers where her pajamas and intimates live. "Oh no, that's just dirt."

He trails, soft footfalls following her. "Vala, you are bleeding."

"The magistrate's men barely had weapons." Yanks out a pair of loose yoga pants and a tank top for after her shower. If she showers in the same stall every night, it's almost like having her own washroom.

Suddenly a pain blooms in her shoulder causing her to shout out, "What are you doing?"

"Remove your jacket."

"Tomin."

"Remove it so I may see the extent of the injury."

Sometimes it's easier to do than to argue. Learned this with men a long time ago, listen to what they want if it's not too extravagant and when they fall asleep rob them blind and leave. Expects her jacket to plop against the floor, but he catches it and folds it neatly in his arms. His fingers prod around the cut and she yips again at close contact.

"You will require stitches." Places the folded, filthy jacket on her pulled tight bedspread and taps a hand on the small of her back to direct her to the door. "Come, I will see you to your infirmary. We can speak there."

"Tomin," she groans resting her head on the doorway arch, "I'm tired and I'd love nothing more than to go to sleep."

"Then perhaps this wound is affecting your discretion, come."

Tomin's thumb depresses the button to open her bedroom door and on the other side is an equally battered Daniel. He leans against the panel, perhaps deciding if he should really ring her, or just skulk away and continue to be upset with her from a distance.

"Vala, I—" Stops his sentence when he registers another person exiting her room. "Tomin?" His eyebrows jump in surprise to cover his probable envy. "What are you doing here."

"I came to speak briefly with Vala, however she has been injured and requires—"

Daniel nods, feigning interest until the last part when his eyebrows do their trampoline bounce again. "Injured. Hurt—your hurt?"

Bursts by both with what little strength she has left. Last night left her reeling in nightmares and ill dreams and gave her a hangover of sleeplessness in the morning. "It's just a small gash. Nothing to serious. A trip to—"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Daniel grabs her by the arm, the arm attached to the injured shoulder no less, and stops her pace to examine the injury himself. A second pair of dirty fingers poke at her open cut. "This is deep."

"Hardly."

"It'll need stiches."

"So I'm told." Turns back at Tomin, who is awkwardly, or perhaps politely, directing his eyes elsewhere while his ex-wife is being manhandled by another man. Catches his eyes briefly pulling him out of his as she smacks Daniel away.

"Hey, that could be really serious." Yells after her while she strides down the hall, intent on being rid of them both. Yanks her shirt back over the wound and throws her hair down on top for good measure. "What if it gets infected?"

"Well then they'll have to take the arm then won't they?"


	4. The Hero

_A/N: This one is my personal favorite_

5 Guys

Chapter 4

The Hero

4.

Finds him in the hanger of the ship, it's only their fifth day being space worthy out of an estimated twenty with a round trip to the remnants of the Ori Supergate. Tomin debriefed her, while the new doctor debrided her wound, on his worries that some other nefarious creatures were going to try and conquer the whole blackhole galaxy travel thing and wanted SGC to investigate the site just to be safe. She suspected there was more to his visit than a simple message he could relay through video, but also suspected it was Daniel's huffs and puffs from the foot of her bed that made him silent on other matters.

"Are you already going stir crazy, Mitchell?" Cups her hands around her mouth, shouting from below a wing of the spacecraft and he snaps out of whatever fever being ship-caged has sent him in.

The hatch of the craft disengages with a hiss and he pops his head, swinging it around, trying to pinpoint her location. "The General send you to find me, Princess?"

"The idea of me going to find you might have been discussed at the breakfast you recently missed." Ducks back under the wing so when his head darts in her direction all he sees are thrusters.

"Aww, is all the porridge gone?" They hate it, both him and her, for reasons the others can't understand. Once when she accompanied him off world for a day while he got a new headlight installed in his jeep, they went to a diner across the street and both stuck their tongue out at the porridge option on the menu.

Crosses her arms leaning back against the body of the craft. "You know very well that there is an endless supply of that slop at the SGC."

"Look, stop hiding already." Confessed he hates it because it reminds him of meals away from home, meals not cooked with love, or real food really, meals meant to make his stomach hard so hunger was one less then he had to worry about. "Just come on up."

Sometimes he lets her play with the pretty little buttons on the Tau'ri spacecraft. Told him she always wanted to learn how to fly one, but he's not allowed to teach her without explicit permission from General Landry, which he will not give because it isn't necessary. She can fly various Goa'uld and Jaffa ships, cargo ships, even piloted the Odyssey once before someone mucked it up.

Without him asking again she scrambles up the engaged side ladder and into the second seat behind him with a thud, quickly but without grace. He doesn't have the helmet on, when it's particularly bad he puts the helmet on and drowns out the fact that though he is contained in his spacecraft, it is contained in another larger spacecraft with more walls.

"The controls are so unreasonable," she mumbles, usually every time, and hovers a hand over all the flick switches and the dials and the rainbow array of large and small buttons.

"See the red button? The one hidden underneath the grip?" Doesn't look back at her or reach to show what he's pointing to, allows her to search, to find, to celebrate.

"The one that has a different finish than the others?" It almost looked like his jeep headlights after he allowed her the chance to drive on an old country road and she hit a telephone pole, the light shattered to pieces and his lips disappeared from his face. "The one like your jeep?"

"Yes, the one like my jeep." Starts harsh but drabbles off into a sigh and his hand hiding away his face.

She leans forward giving the back of his head an abrupt shove. "What about it."

"That's how you turn it on."

"Cameron." Cranes her head around searching for any of the others, and then ducks down into the seat lest she be caught. "Did the General approve this?"

"No." His chin touches his shoulder as turns to check on her.

"Then you shouldn't teach me."

He groans and stands from his seat, the hatch still disengaged allowing him ample room, "I'm the only one who knows how to fly one of these. What if I'm injured and can't and it's our only way out? It never hurts to have a backup."

"Maybe so, but perhaps General Landry would prefer to have someone from his own planet, or his own military—"

"Hey," shoves his hand in front of her drawing her attention away from her twiddling fingers. "You know you're a good pilot, and I know you're a good pilot and one day me teaching you this is going to help, so pay attention."

Doesn't say a word, just watches wide-eyed as he runs through a list of all the controls, how she could possibly find it similar a bit to flying an Al'kesh but only when using the throttle. How the hardest part is landing because if the plane flies too fast the traction of the tires can cause them to crack or break or the plane to spin out.

She never really wanted to learn how to fly the thing, only started showing interest when he didn't turn her away. Cameron tends to keep to himself a lot, especially when stressed, and while everyone else decided to give him room, she recognized the pain behind his isolation.

"Why don't you like porridge," he questions as they climb down from the cockpit.

She doesn't like to tell the truth because people pity her and view her differently, will know the mantle of seductress and her playful banter is a disguise for her personal tragedies. He let her in though and perhaps she owes him the same.

"My parents would often forget to feed me when I was a young child, I would beg in the streets, and this old woman would always give me a bowl of this tasteless paste. I would eat until I vomited."

His expression remains stoic, but he gently places a hand on her back. "I'm glad you found your way to us."


	5. The Doctor

_A/N: I hope you guys enjoyed this brief little series. Hopefully I'll get the chance to do something like this again if the inspiration strikes.  
_

5 Guys

Chapter 5

The Doctor

5.

"Vala don't you think you're being a bit childish?" She barely walks through the door to Daniel's office, her office as well now since he had to give up a teensy portion of his space to her. There is a candy dish with bonbons on her one seat desk and, well, no the kitty poster she hung on the wall has since been removed.

"Did my poster upset you, Darling?" She puts down the cup of tea she pilfered from the cafeteria before it officially opened for breakfast. Another sleepless night with a trilogy of nightmares.

"I'm not talking about the poster, I'm talking about you." He leans into his palm flat on the desk, his knuckles turning white and she knows he's just doing that because he has the urge to whip off his glasses in a dramatic fashion and knows she'll call him on it.

"Please regale me of the ways I am similar to a child." Her finger flicks the switch on her computer monitor, but the screen remains black and dead. Flicks it again. And again. Nothing happens.

Feels his body heat before he leans forward, his voice hard in her ear, "the radioactive power surge you caused two weeks ago fried the computers. You know this."

"I do."

"And yet everyday you walk in here with a tea you shouldn't technically have been allowed to buy—if you did even buy it—and you sit down and try to turn your computer on as if it's going to work."

She shrugs her lips pulling tight and her eyes blinking with innocence. "Well perhaps yesterday after we retired was the time when the computer men came and fixed it up."

"They're not going to fix it up, they're going to toss it once it reads negative on the Geiger counter." Again, such drama, the counter barely spiked the last time they checked, and the device was barely radioactive, not intentionally having been made that way, but after being ancient and stored in an area with knickknacks of questionable quality, metals and materials mix in transit and pow, there's a barely radioactive device on their hands, had to wash their hands, and face, and bodies in a special solution.

"Are you still mad because we had to have that bit of an awkward shower." She didn't make any rude comments or stare or whistle or do anything anyone would find uncomfortable.

"Is this never talking about it again?" Groans it into the back of her chair, burying his head. "Besides they would definitely replace my computer before they replaced yours."

"And I gather you've already checked yours today." Knows he does the same thing as her, but she's too busy stealing from the cafeteria to be at her desk at their desired time.

"Look, I don't know what—" Her chair swivels with the constant weight of him sending his hand directly to her freshly stitched shoulder. The pain feels anew, like the gash has been sutured for a second time. The new doctor isn't as good as Dr. Lam, he was sidetracked by football scores while she leaned her chest against the back of the chair and Tomin stroked her arm regaling her of all his recent conquests. Daniel stood with his back to her, perhaps to give her privacy, and huffed and puffed with his arms crossed.

She lets out a yip as the sensitive area is now prone to over a hundred pounds of bumbling archeologist. He doesn't apologize or panic in his harm of her, but rebuts an accusation, "Oh it wasn't that hard."

She springs from the chair. "Have you gone absolutely wonko?"

"What?" He is a little taken aback with her sudden outburst but attempts to salvage his composure.

"You were in the room last night when I got the twenty stitches, you told me yourself that my shoulder looked bad."

"Yeah but Dr. King did a great job sewing it up—"

"He did not, he spent more time watching the sports highlights on the infirmary television." He doesn't respond, and she circles around him, around the table bisecting the room. "What about you Daniel, you think I'm childish for not speaking with you yesterday? I was hurt and tired. I just wanted to sleep."

"You could have told me that."

"I tried to, but you just kept grunting and crossing your arms and ripping your glasses off your face like they were a bandy"

"Band-Aid"

"Whatever."

"I'm sorry, maybe next time you could let me know when your ex-husband will be visiting us."

"Tomin just arrived, I didn't invite him for a visit, nor did I expect him in my room. Although I can imagine it must have been surprising seeing him there, a little like getting caught with the magistrate's daughter—"

"It was a misunderstanding, the vowel shift didn't—or hasn't happened on their planet yet. I thought I was complimenting her on her coat while she hung it up, and the next thing—"

"It doesn't matter." Her tea is cold, and her patience is rotting. Banter, lively banter, is good for the mind, but pure arguments on frivolous things that neither one of them, least of all him, is willing to admit to is burning on her nerves and making her neck hot. "You're not willing to admit to things, the same things I won't admit to, and until one of us decides differently, we'll be stuck in this stalemate."

He stares at her like she stares at the Christmas lights every time Sam is done decorating. "The General has been teaching me chess twice a week."

She tosses her tea into the trash fixes her hair away from her shoulder, pausing in the doorway she adds, "I'm taking a sick day," leaving him in stunned silence.


End file.
